Open Society Foundations Announce 2022 Soros Equality Fellows

Wednesday, November 9, 2022

Open Society Foundations Announce 2022 Soros Equality Fellows

NEW YORK—The Open Society Foundations today announced the 2022 cohort of Soros Equality Fellows. The diverse group of fellows include documentary filmmakers, professors, archivists, grassroots organizers, policy advocates, journalists, and authors.

Working across the United States, the 12 fellows will take on a range of issues at the core of Open Society’s work advancing racial justice, including voting rights, immigration, asylum practices, intellectual property law, and media accountability.

“We are proud to work with the 2022 class of Soros Equality Fellows, a group of individuals who will bring strong leadership to critical conversations around the range of racial and social justice issues that this country is currently grappling with,” said Andrew Maisel, senior program manager at Open Society-U.S. “Their work will help us build towards a more just and equitable future.”

Among the projects the sixth cohort of Equality Fellows will be working on: multimedia educational resources on race and equity in intellectual property law, a book and other media on race and debt, an archive and arts installations on Black enslaved people in the United States and Afrodescendant Puerto Ricans, an inclusive story-telling model to support better community engagement in TV and film production, a documentary that tells the stories of survivors of hate violence, a talk show produced through an Indigenous lens, a documentary about voting rights in Georgia, and a catalog of effective practices by Latinx organizations to create a collective identity.

The 2022 Soros Equality Fellows will receive stipends of $130,000 for their projects over the course of 18 months along with leadership development training, networking, and other professional support aimed at strengthening new ideas in the racial and social justice movement.

Applications for the 2023 cohort of fellows will be opening on November 17, 2022.

The 2022 Soros Equality Fellows:

Anjali Vats will focus on race and equity in intellectual property law, by developing multimedia educational resources designed to reach a range of audiences, including teachers, lawyers, policymakers, creators, and activists.

Maurice BP-Weeks aims to build a new race forward movement to take on the crisis of race and debt. He will produce a book, public writing, a podcast, and public informational and training webinars with collaborators.

Marissel Hernández Romero’s project, Black and Afro-Boricua Collective Knowledge Repository, will build an archive that seeks to retrieve lived-experiences, culture, and knowledge of Black and Afrodescendant Puerto Rican’s as a route to racial justice.

Hannah Drake and Josh Miller will expand (Un)Known Project to a national initiative featuring sites that use arts installations and experiences to honor the names and tell stories of Black enslaved people in the United States.

Maytha Alhassan will design a storytelling model—a port-to-port, concept inception to community engagement, strategy and service for TV shows and films geared towards activating the transformative power of art for social change.

Arjun Singh Sethi will co-direct a documentary that tells the stories of survivors of hate violence, based on his book, American Hate: Survivors Speak Out.

Michelle Schenandoah’s project is the creation of a nationally broadcasted talk show called “Rematriated Voices”. Hosted by Schenandoah, the show will provide educational entertainment to the American public through an Indigenous lens.

Daresha Kyi will make a documentary about the co-founders of the Black Voters Matter Fund, Cliff Albright and LaTosha Brown, their work to empower African American communities, and their role in flipping Georgia from red to blue in 2020.

Ana Maria Archila will catalog and disseminate effective practices by leading Latinx organizations to foster belonging, cohesion, and the formation of collective identity that is culturally authentic and politically honest.

Karim Ahmad will advance the work of Restoring the Future, build on the report published with a network of arts organizations, and seek to design, prototype, and proliferate restorative practices across our media arts system.

Set Hernandez Rongkilyo will produce unseen, a feature-length, multi-platform documentary about Pedro, an aspiring social worker striving to provide mental health services to underserved communities.

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